Rink, Prof. Dr. Dieter - Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research

Prof. Dr. Dieter Rink

Contact

Prof. Dr. Dieter Rink
Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology
Helmholtz Centre
for Environmental Research - UFZ
Permoserstr. 15
04318 Leipzig, Germany

phone: ++49 - 341 - 6025 1744
Prof. Dr. Dieter Rink

Current Projects

Societal Transformations towards Sustainability − Platform Project 6.4: Transformations towards resilient cities

URPrax – Urban resilience in practice: Preparation of a municipal implementation project

Completed Projects

BNE-Kompetenzzentrum Bildung – Nachhaltigkeit – Kommune (BiNaKom)

Resilienz in der kommunalen Praxis – RESI-vhw

RegioZukunft:Wärme – Wärmeversorgung der „Stadt der Zukunft“ und der Region im Kontext von Transformation und Adaption (BMBF)

Integrated Project (IP) "Urban Transformations: sustainable urban development towards resource efficiency, quality of life and resilience"
(2014-2018, POF 3, Topic 1)

EnRoute - Enhancing Resilience of Urban Ecosystems through Green Infrastructure

RegioZukunft:Wärme – Wärmeversorgung der „Stadt der Zukunft“ und der Region im Kontext von Transformation und Adaption (BMBF)

Integrated Project (IP) "Urban Transformations: sustainable urban development towards resource efficiency, quality of life and resilience"
(2014-2018, POF 3, Topic 1)

EnRoute - Enhancing Resilience of Urban Ecosystems through Green Infrastructure

Urban Woodlands

Thinking ahead - Leipzig's path towards a sustainable city

Urban land use conflicts and options

SHRINK SMART: The Governance of Shrinkage within a European Context

ALTER-Net: A Long-term Biodiversity, Ecosystem and Awareness Research Network

Nachhaltigkeitsmonitoring in schrumpfenden Städten

Stadtumbau und Flächenhaushaltspolitik

Social Atlas of the City of Leipzig

URBS PANDENS - Urban Sprawl: European Patterns, Environmental Degradation and Sustainability (EU)

Aufbau einer integrierten regionalen Umwelt- und Sozialberichterstattung unter dem Leitbild einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung

Umweltmentalitäten, Naturvorstellungen und Lebensstile in Ostdeutschland

Naturverständnisse in der Nachhaltigkeitsforschung

Interdependenzen von gebauter, sozialer und natürlicher Umwelt und deren Einfluss auf die Umsetzung quartiersbezogener Umweltqualitätsziele

Naturvorstellungen und ökologisches Handeln

Publications

Publications – Prof. Dr. Dieter Rink (396 KB)

Find more details on the German page

Integration plattform

Societal Transformations
towards Sustainability

News

Workshop on the governance of CCS

From 1 to 2 June 2026, the Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology hosted a workshop on strategies for the governance of multidimensional risks associated with carbon capture and storage.
learn more

Exploring Possibilities in Digital Laboratories

On October 8–9, the international workshop “Real World Labs versus Solutions – Exploring Possibilities in Digital Laboratories” took place at UFZ. Researchers from six countries discussed real-world labs, digital and playful experimentation, and solution approaches. A summary is now available here.

Mariana Madruga de Brito receives Arne Richter Award 2025

Mariana Madruga de Brito has received the Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Early Career Scientists. With it, the European Geosciences Union honours scientists for their important contributions to the Earth, planetary and space sciences. The awards were celebrated during the EGU General Assembly 2025, which was held from 27 April – 2 May.

more News & Highlights

Publications

Green European Revisited: Environmental Behaviour and Attitudes in Europe in the Face of the Polycrisis. 2026: This book examines how environmental attitudes and behaviors are evolving across Europe in an age of polycrisis. Drawing on decades of International Social Survey Programme Environment data, this volume traces shifts in worldviews and lifestyles, and generally on how Europeans think about environmental problems, how their priorities change over time, and how everyday lifestyles differ across countries. It also examines changing ecological risk perceptions, public trust in science, ideas of progress and growth, and the ways in which political identities shape perceptions of global change.

Fully revised new edition:
Groß, M.; McGoey, L.: Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies. 2nd edition 2023 (Paperback 2024).

The REGREEN NBS Handbook (2024) "From concept to action for ecosystem restoration & urban resilience" provides a comprehensive overview of the REGREEN project‘s key findings and outcomes, focusing on Nature-based Solutions (NbS) for urban sustainability in Europe and China. The handbook addresses crucial aspects of NbS design, implementation and governance.

Resilience is the concept of the moment. The coronavirus crisis, the flood disaster in the Ahr valley and the energy shortage have put resilience at the top of the political agenda, including in local authorities. The articles in the book "Die Resiliente Stadt. Konzepte, Konflikte, Lösungen" (ed. S. Kabisch, D. Rink, E. Banzhaf 2024) analyse how existing insights lead to action and how knowledge is used. A deeper understanding of the resilient city is developed by analysing different municipal fields of action.

The new Handbook of Environmental Sociology (ed. M. Sonnberger, A. Bleicher, M. Groß) offers a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the broad research field of nature-society relations. It introduces theoretical and methodological approaches in a national and international context and presents the state of research in various fields of environmental sociology. It also highlights the challenges and opportunities of environmental sociological research in co-operation with other disciplines.

Current publications